Monday, July 7, 2008

"Look Before You Beep" (1966-1968)

Now HERE is something truly special, Looney Tunes fans. While converting his Warner cartoon collection from aging VHS tapes to DVD, Jon found a collection of original linking segments created for the 1960's "Road Runner Show". This series of gags was created by Robert McKimson, presumably after he made the first two post-Chuck Jones cartoons with Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner, "Rushing Roulette" and "Sugar and Spies". While 11 theatrical shorts (soon to be aired on this very show) were being directed at an outside studio by Rudy Larriva, McKimson was doing these Roadrunner Show interstitials, as well as most of the Daffy Duck/Speedy Gonzales cartoons of the time. It's interesting to note that Bill Lava's musical score for "Rushing Roulette" was "canned" and reused over and over again in the Larriva shorts, and also these bumper segments. It seems the irresistibly catchy theme was the designated "theme song" for the Road Runner at the time, regardless of who was doing the animation. The canned music, along with a constantly reused shot of the Road Runner running down the road, are the only cheats you'll find in these hilarious lost segments, edited together by yours truly into a full 7-minute short! This footage has not been seen in the United States in at least 20 years. Enjoy!

12 comments:

It's things like this that make me wish I had Canadian TV! A very clever collection you've compiled, showing that these had more effort and budget than the actual cartoons. I see McKimson even tried to keep faithful to Chuck's style when using his characters, which is a nice plus.

And for the record, the canned theme tune was used about 9 times here XD

The video quality is excellent even if it came from a VHS cassette (PS. How to put VHS videos on a DVD?), I've never seen this sketches and this is a great and important tribute to Looney Tunes history!

My favorite part is when Wile E. makes the portrait to Road Runner and him!! :D and shall we talk about the part when he was totally in pants??? (only in Jones' "War and Piece" there was a scene like this!) I laughed a lot!!!!

I *think* that's all of the newly created blackout gag interstitials by McKimson. Other bumpers on the RR Show were merely gags lifted from old Jones shorts with the RR Show theme music dubbed over them.

As you can see from the logo in the corner this footage has aired (and is still airing) on Canada's Teletoon/Teletoon Retro channels. Here's hoping it surfaces as a DVD bonus feature someday!

and shall we talk about the part when he was totally in pants??? (only in Jones' "War and Piece" there was a scene like this!) I laughed a lot!!!!

Tends to be a common gag in these cartoons that your animal character wears his fur like a suit, and thus, may have underwear underneath. There were many occasions I've noticed this sort of thing happen a lot.

To dub VHS to DVD, use a DVD recorder on "line-in" then finalize the disc (I did this recently witha couple old Houndcats episodes). Discs must be formatted first (aDVD recorder will also accomplish that)

you are right, Chris! As I remember, this happen in particular in Foghorn Leghorn's cartoon, where in a certain scene he completely changed his feather outfit with another one as it was a dress, while he had underwear underneath too!...Ain't also one with Daffy in red-poxed-panties?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this Underwear gag happens in particular in Bob McKimson's cartoons, with the sole exception of Jones'"War and Piece"!

Good job, Matt..>! The other GAC Matt, Matt the Y is correct in saying that the Pink Outs short for the POink panther was not one of those cheater carotons (that and this Coyote one-we've had coyotes here in Southern ZCalif..), in the "Devils Feud Cake" thread but the "Pink Outs" black outs WERE connected in 1969 for the Panther cartoon with veteran radio/caroton/TV voice/actor Marvin Miller narrating and new Doug Goodwin music.-Steve Carras

Great job! I didn't know so many of these bumpers existed. I hope Warner decides to do this as well and make it "official". I've also been hoping that they would acquire the Chuck Jones directed shorts from the 1970s show "The Electric Company" and make and "official" Looney Tune from that.

I have been wanting to something like this for years using the bridging footage from all of the TV specials made in the 80s. Seeing as how they were done by most of the old Warner animators and the unforgettable voice of Mel Blanc more than makes up for the low budgets they were made on.

One final note, I am especially happy that you used the 1960s stylized opening/closing as not only was this being used in theaters at the time, but it also is most associated with the Depatie-Freeleng cartoon (from which these bumpers were produced). Again great job!